Our Mission

We have lived, hiked, fished, hunted and worked in Yellowstone country for over 40 years. We feel there are bedrock values we all share as Americans.

We believe in looking out for our neighbors, we believe in liberty tempered by responsibility and we feel it is our duty to take care of the world, both the one we’ve made and the natural world.

We’ve made a solid living from a healthy environment, one with clear-clean public waters and air, wild rivers and native trout and wildlife, intact and vibrant riparian areas. We feel it is our responsibility by using public resources to give more back to these resources and our partners that ensure they remain unimpaired for all future generations to enjoy. This was the idea my good friend, Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia Inc., and I shared when we came up with our idea for creating 1% for the Planet.

Who began the movement to protect our natural resources and treasures?

It wasn’t Theodore Roosevelt or John Muir, or Aldo Leopold. It was, and still is the 30,000 small grassroots environmental organizations like our partners that hold bake sales, host dinners and auctions raising funds and stepping up to the plate and protecting our public lands and resources, preserve and enhance native and wild trout habitat and wildlife migration corridors, clean water and other natural resources so important to our local economies.

Here’s a small sampling of valuable and irreplaceable natural resources we’ve helped protect, preserve and enhance in the Madison and Henry’s Fork River Valleys and Yellowstone National Park:

What We've Achieved

  • Served on founding board of Yellowstone Park Foundation (now Yellowstone Forever) developing projects and programs like the Yellowstone cutthroat trout enhancement project on Yellowstone Lake and beyond.

  • Worked with River Network (Western Rivers Conservancy) on successful completion of the $3 Bridge Project on Madison River that funded purchase of over 170 acres along the river allowing public access forever

  • Partnered with Trust for Public Land on successful completion of Olifee Ranch conservation easement that joins $3 Bridge easement permanently protecting miles of the Madison River against harmful streamside development and keeping the land open to the public to fish and hike, forever.

  • Worked with The Montana Nature Conservancy, Bureau of Land Management, and Madison River Foundation to complete a private land purchase and transfer to public ownership a parcel of land that allows public access to several miles of the Madison River between Palisades Fishing Access Site and McAtee Bridge.

  • Founded 1% for the Planet (with Patagonia Inc. Yvon Chouinard) that to date has raised over $220 million dollars for conservation projects and programs, many in the Greater Yellowstone area.